The good folks at Pebble today are kicking things up a notch with a new software update that allows for full activity tracking and sleep monitoring for all Pebble watches. No longer will you need your Pebble on one wrist and a fitness band on the other — Pebble now does it all. Today, Pebble is announcing new health and fitness apps from Misfit, Jawbone, and Swim.com that allow you to take advantage of the new integrated features.

With these new apps, you'll no longer need to use a fitness band in conjunction with your Pebble. Your Pebble does all of the activity tacking and can even work on its own without your phone. You can simply view your stats, or sync the data to the cloud when your Pebble is paired with your smartphone.

The updated Misfit app will now monitor your activity and sleep around the clock, the new Up watch face from Jawbone will show off your stats in style, and the new app from Swim.com allows you to measure paces, distance, times, strokes, and more.

In addition, Pebble and Pebble Steel prices are dropping $50. Pebble is now just $99 / €129 / £99 and Pebble Steel is $199 / €229 / £179. If you haven't been able to justify picking up a Pebble or Pebble Steel before, now you can. You'll also be able to do so in even more retail stores including Sam's Club and Fry's Electronics, and soon Sprint stores across the US. In the UK, Pebble devices will soon be heading to Dixons, O2, and Amazon.co.uk.

The latest software update is rolling out now, so be sure to check often and get to updating! The Pebble app is available free for iOS.

When we launched Pebble two and a half years ago, our mission was simple: build the most enjoyable, customizable, and versatile smartwatch on the market at an accessible price. The market has exploded since then, but our mission remains the same.

Last January at CES 2014, we unveiled Pebble Steel to critical acclaim. It was a resounding success and the catalyst for tremendous growth. Since then, we've opened the Pebble appstore, which boasts over 4,000 apps that have been downloaded five million times. Our open platform counts over 18,000 developers, from passionate hackers to partners like Mercedes-Benz, Pandora, the Weather Channel, and ESPN.

Today, we're announcing a new area of growth for our ecosystem — health and fitness — and releasing a software update that enables non-stop activity tracking and sleep monitoring (thanks to Pebble's class-leading multi-day battery life). This update lets Pebble users display their favorite watchface while tracking their activity in the background (full release notes below). At Pebble, we believe that providing consumers with a world-class experience means working with market-leading app partners. As such, we're introducing new health and fitness apps from Misfit, Jawbone, and Swim.com that take full advantage of this new functionality.

The Misfit app for Pebble has been updated to enable continuous, round-the-clock activity tracking and sleep monitoring. Jawbone is launching its own activity tracking watchface for Pebble called UP which shows daily and weekly activity progress and automatically syncs with its new UP app for iOS (and coming to Android soon). Swim.com is the first watch app that allows users to measure distance, pace, times, strokes, and efficiency while swimming with their Pebble and automatically sync this data with their phone and the cloud when returning to the locker room (this is where Pebble's 5 ATM water-resistance comes in handy).

Growth also means that we're expanding Pebble's retail presence in a significant way and making our watches even more accessible. Pebble is now available at Sam's Club, Fry's Electronics, and coming soon to Sprint stores across the US—joining Best Buy, Target, AT&T stores, and Amazon.com. Our watches will be rolling out in the UK at Dixons retail, O2, and Amazon.co.uk starting in October. We're also entering new markets tomorrow in Benelux (MediaMarkt, Coolblue.nl, Wehkamp.nl, Bol.com), and Scandinavia (MediaMarkt, Teknikmagasinet, coolstuff.se/no/dk, Verkkokauppa.com, and more).

Right from the start, Pebble's mission has been to make technology more accessible. Our growth lets us to take another step in that direction. To celebrate our success and spread the love, we're making Pebble irresistible. Pebble is now $99 / €129 / £99 and Pebble Steel is now $199 / €229 / £179 everywhere. You're very welcome.

Pebble Firmware 2.6 Release Notes

NEW: Activity. Activity tracking apps (e.g. Jawbone, Misfit, Swim.com) for Pebble now work seamlessly in the background. View installed Activity apps and toggle preferences in the Pebble Settings menu. An Activity icon is visible within Pebble menus when a compatible app is installed and running.

NEW: Quick Launch. Set shortcuts from a watchface to your favorite Pebble apps with a long press of the Up or Down buttons. Enable Quick Launch and set app shortcuts in the Pebble Settings menu.

Battery icon is now persistent within Pebble menus.

Select button once again dismisses notifications when paired with an Android device or iOS device on iOS 7 or lower. iOS 8 users get notificaion dismissal for both Pebble and the paired device when pressing Select.

Bug fixes and improvements.

To update to the latest firmware:

Open the Pebble smartphone app for iOS or Android.

Select Support » Update Your Pebble in the Menu if the update does not begin automatically.